Empowerment 'At Work': Examining Economic Empowerment in Organizations Serving Survivors of Commercial Sexual Exploitation

Danielle J Corple, Purdue University

Abstract

Despite assumptions of sex trafficking as a form of ‘international smuggling,’ commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) is on the rise in the United States. Increasing numbers of nonprofit organizations are emerging to provide holistic services to CSE survivors, including medical care, housing, psychological treatment, education opportunities, life skills training, and more. However, few provide the vocational training and employment experience necessary for women survivors to sustain financial independence long-term. As a result, increasing numbers of nonprofits in this sector have begun social enterprises, training and employing survivors in their homegrown businesses as a form of ‘economic empowerment.’ The prospect of commercial revenue is also an attractive possibility for traditional, donor-based nonprofit organizations. Thus, while organizations seek to provide ‘economic empowerment’ opportunities for survivors, developing alternative revenue streams may be a way of economically empowering the organizations themselves. Little is known about effective programs for survivors of CSE, let alone those that offer vocational training and employment opportunities. Furthermore, research on nonprofit commercialization shows mixed results; some studies link commercialization to mission ‘drift,’ and others highlight the possibilities of social enterprise to strengthen and further the organization’s mission. Thus, this project examines the discursive-material construction of individual and organizational economic empowerment at nonprofits that serve survivors of CSE. By combining multiple qualitative methods, this study examines 18 organizations that both serve CSE survivors and engage in (or plan to engage in) business activities. In doing so, this project also explicates what tensions emerge in these processes, and how organizational members frame and respond to them. The findings reveal the ways in which organizational and individual organizational economic empowerment is discursively-materially constituted. By defining organizational economic empowerment as “the discursive-material processes by which organizations mobilize resources to meet their mission,” this study first discusses the construction of “mission,” arguing that CSE organizations position the “market as the mission but so much more.” This project then discusses resource mobilization, arguing that CSE organizations discursively-materially leverage their organizational hybridity to mobilize resources to achieve their social missions. The findings also explicate individual economic empowerment, arguing that it has three primary components: (re)gaining agency over one’s body and finances, engaging in meaningful work, and sustaining long-term economic independence. This study also examines the tensions that emerge from constructions of both individual and organizational economic empowerment, as well as how organizational members frame the tensions and respond to them. This study also contributes to theorizing of organizational and individual empowerment, specifically the role of materiality, embodiment, and contradictions in constructing empowerment. Its practical contributions include strategies for nonprofits seeking to develop enterprises, as well nonprofits providing services to CSE survivors. In sum, this study adds knowledge and insight to an area where scant information exists—how nonprofits operate businesses to offer economic opportunity to survivors of economic exploitation.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Buzzanell, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Labor relations|Organizational behavior

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